The present invention relates to a gear assembly for children's ride-on vehicles, and more particularly to a gear assembly which automatically engages or disengages the vehicle's drive wheel or wheels when the motor is energized or de-energized.
One significant problem with children's ride-on vehicles having a small motor for driving the vehicle forward or rearward, is that when the motor is not energized, if the motor remains engaged with the vehicle's gear assembly, then when the vehicle is pushed either forward or backward, the motor and gear assembly are involuntarily driven or backdriven. This is undesirable because it unnecessarily results in wear and tear of the motor and gears. Moreover, if the motor remains engaged with the vehicle's gear assembly, a small child will often be unable to move the vehicle because of the resistance encountered when attempting to do so. Thus, the vehicle's utility would reside only when the motor is energized.
Conventional attempts have been made to solve this problem and involve using user-actuated levers or spring-loaded gears for engaging the driving gears. In the former attempts, a user must physically engage the gears with a lever for moving the vehicle. This is undesirable because a child may not understand how to operate the lever, or worse yet, the child may subject the lever to abuse thus rendering it useless. In the latter attempts, the additional moving parts (i.e., springs, moving gears, etc.) increase the chances that a spring will dislodge or slip out of position, or that one of the moving gears will malfunction thereby rendering the vehicle useless.
An example of the former attempts is U.S. Pat. No. 4,152,866 which discloses a gear assembly for use in a riding toy, having a spring-biased disc member axially joined to a selectively driven gear. The disc member is engaged by a pivotable lever which must be moved by the rider to selectively engage and disengage the driven gear with a driving gear connected to the toy's motor.
An example of the latter attempts is U.S. Pat. No. 4,484,649 which discloses a child's riding toy with an electric motor, a gear assembly, and plural driven gears selectively engaged by a driving gear which is connected by a spring to the assembly's housing and biased in a disengaged position. When the motor is energized, the force of the spring is overcome and the driving gear moves into engagement with the plural driven gears, and when the motor is de-energized the spring pulls the driving gear out of engagement with the output gear.
With the above problems in mind, it is a general object of the invention to provide a gear assembly which automatically engages the vehicle's drive wheel or wheels when the motor is energized.
It is another object of the invention to provide a children's ride-on vehicle which may be ridden and enjoyed by a child regardless of whether the motor is energized or de-energized.
It is yet another object of the invention to provide a children's ride-on vehicle which may be easily pushed forward or rearward when the motor is de-energized, without driving or back-driving the motor or other gears.
It is another object of the invention to provide a gear assembly which automatically moves a motor into engagement with a gear assembly when the motor is engaged.
It is a further object of the invention to provide a gear assembly that achieves the above results and yet is economical to manufacture by virtue of having relatively few parts, featuring components readily moldable from plastic which are rugged enough to tolerate the abuses expected in the operating environment.
In brief summary, the invention achieves these and other objects in the form of a children's riding vehicle having a unique and novel gear assembly and engagement structure associated therewith. The vehicle includes a frame having plural wheels, and a gear assembly fixed on the frame which includes an output gear non-rotatably connected to at least one of the vehicle's wheels. A motor on the frame is mounted in a motor mount on an arm which is movable between an engaged position for driving the gear assembly, and a disengaged position for allowing the vehicle's wheels to be rotated without driving or backdriving the motor. A segment gear is mounted on the frame adjacent the gear assembly and engages the motor's pinion thereby defining a path between the engaged and disengaged positions. When the motor is energized, the pinion climbs up the segment gear and eventually onto a first gear in the assembly for transmitting the driving force of the motor to the gear assembly and hence driving the vehicle. When the motor is de-energized, the pinion re-traces its path, back down the segment gear to the disengaged position, thereby allowing the vehicle's wheels to rotate freely without driving or back-driving the motor. Unique and novel gear-tooth profiles are provided to prevent the gears from jamming during transition between the engaged and disengaged positions.
These and other objects and advantages are obtained by the invention, which is described below in conjunction with the accompanying drawings.